So tonight on my menu it said “Baked Stuffed Potatoes”. Normally this would excite me immensely BUT I’ve literally been eating potatoes at every meal on this “Living on WW2 Rations Experiment” and I just COULDN’T eat more again tonight. Instead I had “Apple Charlotte + Jam Sauce” for dinner, so yes I had dessert for dinner and no dinner.
I love a good bread based pudding, preferably with some fruit in it so this Apple Charlotte was easy to make and amazing to taste especially with the jam sauce (which was easy to make too). I obviously ate the whole pudding and enjoyed EVERY-SINGLE-MOUTHFUL!
This recipe is from the “Ministry of Food” War Cookery Leaflet No. 13.
Apple Charlotte
- 1lb apples
- 6 oz breadcrumbs
- 2-3 oz sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, nutmeg or mixed spice
- 2 oz margarine melted
Method
Prepare the fruit and cut it into thin slices. Mix together the breadcrumbs, sugar, spice and melted margarine. Arrange a layer of the breadcrumb mixture in a greased pint sized pie dish, then a layer of fruit and continue filling the pie dish with alternate layers until all the ingredients are used up finishing with a layer of the breadcrumb mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for 3/4 to 1 hour.
What I did
With there just being 1 of me to feed I halved the ingredients. I had no margarine spare to use so instead I added a little milk with the breadcrumbs. To save on energy I cooked the apple in the microwave before adding it to the dish then cooked the dish in the air fryer, only took 10 minutes or so.
Jam Sauce
- 1 tablespoon of flour
- 2 teaspoons of jam
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- milk
Method
I mixed the flour into a thick paste with the milk. Added more milk to create a thin consistency. Place this in a saucepan and gently heated the sauce adding in the jam and sugar while the mixture is getting warmer. Stir slowly and gently bring to a simmer until you have a nice sauce with a custard consistency. Add milk while heating if it gets too thick.
I am a diabetic and I couldn’t eat all these carbs with rationing. Would I starve or would they give me more veggies and meat, fat chance.
I read this article several weeks ago about Diabetes during WW2 and mortality rate and rationing xxxx It was an interesting read https://mccarrison.com/resources/sidebar/health-improvements-associated-with-war-time-rationing/falling-diabetes-rates-in-wwi-and-wwii/
Hi Cheryl
In my reading I came across a couple of mentions of different rations for diabetics. Basically you gave up your sugar ration and received extra butter and margarine and also either extra meat or cheese (depending on whether you were vegetarian). They didn’t specify extra veg, probably because it wasn’t rationed anyway. Not sure how diabetics were meant to use the preserves or sweets rations either, but they weren’t mentioned in the sources I found.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1941/sep/30/rationed-foodstuffs
Scroll down to end of the page to the section: “III. Weekly Supplementary allowances of rationed foods for invalids”
Leanne
That’s really helpful Leanne!!! Thanks C xxx
On diabetics in WW2. It seems that they had very forward thinking dieticians at that time as they recognised that the main danger for diabetics wasn’t calories or fat that were most important but the reduction of sugar intake, in all it’s forms.